Review: Plantronics GameCom 780 7.1 Surround Sound Headset

Review: Plantronics GameCom 780

By: Christopher “Synther” Wilson

Gamers can be a pretty finicky lot when it comes to their peripherals.  They seem to spend obscene amounts of money on the latest and greatest when it concerns mice and keyboards, but a lot of us tend to make our sound system more of a luxury item.  This is a real shame since game designers spend almost as much time on audio effects, ambient sounds, and music as they do on game design and graphics!  If you don’t have a good set of headphones for gaming, you’re really doing yourself a disservice.  Not to mention the fact that you want to watch all those torrented movies and listen to music in-between games…you know, for your down time.

A lot of companies in the last four or five years have come out with 5.1 and 7.1 “surround sound” headsets for gamers.  I put “surround sound” in quotes because none of these, with the exception of the Psyko Audio Krypton or Razer Tiamet are true surround sound headphones.  This means that generally you’re getting standard headphones that are capable of using a software matrix for surround sound simulation.  This software is licensed by Dolby and generally, the manufacturers are not supposed to mess with this surround field.  The fact is that this surround field must be getting messed with somewhere, because you find a huge variation in quality between these different makes and models of headsets.  And generally, when you go in to buy a new headset, you’re not going to really get to try them out.  You rely on reviews like this one or when one of your friends tells you it’s good.  The biggest problem I have with the idea of not being able to try these headsets out first is the price.  Most of these headsets range from the astronomical in price to the “ouch...my wallet.”  And if you’re going to be dropping $150 to $250 on any peripheral, it’s absolutely absurd that you wouldn’t cry for the Help to come take it out of the box and set you up on a functioning system to take it for a test drive.  I feel the same way about keyboards and mice.  If the guy at Best Buy isn’t willing to plug it into a working computer so you can try it out, they certainly don’t want your $200 very badly.

At PDXLAN 19, I was lucky enough to win a set of Plantronics GameCom 780 7.1 Surround Sound headphones.  Yes, I’m very late in writing this review and you have my apologies.  It should be noted that unlike other “surround sound” headphones, the GameCom 780 isn’t going to stab your wallet with a harpoon.  They retail for about $79.99 and I’ve seen them lower on Amazon.  The price point mixed with their excellent quality makes for a huge upside.

The first thing I noticed about these headphones is the sturdy construction.  It always seems that the first thing to get crunched in your LAN bag is the headset…I don’t know why the gods of computing have deemed this to be their cruel joke, but it just is.  The GameCom 780 is sturdy enough to feel like it won’t come apart if you handle it too roughly while being light enough to not feel like you have now parked a Buick on the top of your head.  The weight issue is extremely pleasant since before the GameCom 780 I was using a Logitech G35 and after about 45 minutes of gaming, the weight and pressure of the Logitechs gave me a headache.  I find none of that with the weight of the GameCom 780 and I can literally wear them all day.  The other nice feature is that the GameCom 780 will allow the ear cups to be rotated to lay flat.  This way, you can safely stow them in your LAN bag with less fear of something getting damaged.  The USB cable for the GameCom 780 is very durable, if plane.  The only real complaint I have with the cable is the length and color.  Red?  Really?  It goes with nothing I would normally wear.  The length of the cable seems to be right at six feet, so don’t plan on trying to hide much of it behind your monitor or desk.  I would have liked to have seen an eight foot cable on these.

The ear cups and headband are covered in a very soft velvet and make wearing these for extended periods extremely comfortable.  I know some people enjoy the leatherette covers and claim that it offers for better sound isolation.  But for me, if I’m doing some fragging for more than an hour, I prefer the velvet so that my ears and head don’t sweat and feel like I have a plastic bag on it.  Another complaint that I had about the Logitech G35 is that it felt like it was constantly squeezing my head.  They have a very firm grip!  The GameCom 780 doesn’t seem to have this feeling and I find it very comfortable.  I know that I seem to be beating on the Logitech G35 and I really don’t mean to.  The G35’s hardware makes it an excellent headset!  I’m simply using them as a comparison here.

The boom microphone on the GameCom 780 is a noise cancelling mic and uses the technology that has really put Plantronics on the map to begin with.  The sound quality of the mic is crystal clear.  The mic will swing down and should fit into a comfortable position even if you have a face like a horse.  Microphone mute is controlled by flip switch on the back of the left headset.  Some of the more expensive headsets, such as the Logitech G35, have the ability to mute the mic when it is in the up position.  This is a nice feature, but is sadly missing on the GameCom 780.

Other controls on the left ear cup is a volume control consisting of a rocker switch on the back bottom corner, directly below the mic mute switch, and a Dolby Surround On/Off press button with a blue LED light.  The volume control will sound a beeping in the headphones indicating volume up or down, with a short staccato set of beeps when you reach either Max or Min volume.  The only complaint that I have with the rocker switch is that it seems rather imprecise.  A simple roller is much more accurate and if you have volume controls on your keyboard, you’ll likely find yourself preferring to use those.  The Dolby button works exactly as it should.  When on, the blue LED lights up, and the headset is in Dolby Surround Mode.  When turned off the headset is in standard stereo mode.  This function can also be controlled directly from the GameCom 780 software driver.

Like any USB virtual surround sound headset, you’ll need to install the provided software driver.  I won’t make any bones about it…this is a pretty basic and simple driver.  Absolutely no frills here.  You don’t even have access to a system wide equalizer!  This can be either good or bad, depending on your mindset.  For instance, newer versions of the Logitech G35 driver (version 8.30.36 as of this writing) have gotten progressively worse about overdriving the bass to the point that if you messed with the driver equalizer at all, you completely destroyed the sound quality of the headset.  In fact, the bass was so overdriven with the current version, that even with the levels left flat, you had to lower the Subwoofer setting to get the G35 to not distort in the other channels!  So, I’m of a mixed mind on whether having a driver equalizer is truly necessary.  In some cases, less is more, and after having used these I can agree that there really doesn’t need to be an EQ in the driver.  Besides the point that most media players, including Windows Media Player, have a built in EQ or access to SRS WoW anyway.  The driver does have two modes, however: Music Mode and Gaming/Movie Mode.  I’ve read that Music Mode is supposed to give you a bit more bass response.  The honest truth is that I don’t see much of a difference at all between these two modes.  The difference is so slight that I can’t be sure if the difference I hear is simply my mind playing tricks on me and convincing me that I’m hearing that because that has been what I was told.

As stated previously, you can enable or disable the Dolby Surround field in the driver, as well, by the use of a simply check box.  A nice feature of the driver is direct access to your Windows Sound Control Panel.  This gives you direct access to configuring your headset in Windows and it appears that the GameCom 780 software driver works closely with the Windows 7 Sound Control Panel environment.  Everything can be setup here, including setting whether the surround sound is in Stereo, Quadraphonic, 5.1 Dolby, or 7.1 Dolby.  Even with this ability, I would very much like to see Plantronics do something more with their software driver and add more features.

By now, you’re probably wondering about how they actually sound.  Well, I can tell you that they sound phenomenal!  The ear cups on the GameCom 780 are actually vented.  This serves two purposes: 1.) It allows for a much more natural sound experience.  If you are sitting in a movie theater, you don’t have complete sound isolation pounding directly into your ears and you shouldn’t have that when wearing a headset either.  It took some getting used to but the sound is far superior overall and the surround field seems to benefit a great deal from this.  2.) Your ears don’t get hot and sweaty.  Nobody likes that.  Plus, you’re not so isolated that if someone says something to you that you’re completely oblivious to their presence.  Some people may not like that, but I for one don’t like putting my head in a sealed box and the 40mm drivers seem to offer enough volume that it’s not an issue at all.

Speaking of the 40mm drivers, the sound quality is excellent with no distortion at all.  Movies, music, and games all sound fantastic.  Testing them out, I loaded up Star Wars: The Old Republic and the surround field made the game feel like you were in one of the movies.  It is easy to discern direction of sounds from any direction and the bass response is perfect without being overwhelming and distorting or drowning out the other channels.  Comparing the sound quality to my Logitech G35, I have to say that the Plantronics GameCom 780 wins, hands down.  As I stated, the Logitech G35 has fantastic hardware but the software has been progressively ruining the sound quality of these headphones.  For the money, I’d rather go with the Plantronics GameCom 780.  Better sound and better comfort overall.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that if you are considering a new headset purchase or if this is your first headset purchase, you should seriously consider the Plantronics GameCom 780.  The price point won’t break your bank and the sound quality is superior to headsets that you would pay nearly twice for.  You simply can’t go wrong with the Plantronics GameCom 780.